yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
You are welcome. Actually I should be thanking you for creating the video and posting it on XDA. I was wondering why I was getting so many XOOM questions by email all of a sudden, and upon some googling I stumbled upon your thread here :)

Bluray is a nightmare. I won't go into too much detail, but my first experience with a bluray movie required a 2-hour process of updating my bluray-player to make the darn movie to work, which is something that is just plain wrong. I can understand the reasoning behind it, but by putting paying customers through that will actually cause more piracy than that it would prevent.

Anyway, regarding bluray and dvdcat. The Beta version I have on the site (note, no XOOM profile in it, so write down the settings you use now) works with unprotected bluray movies (use AnyDVD HD or DVDfab Passkey or mount ISOs with something like Daemontools). Unfortunately, from the 40 or so I tried, some worked, some didn't. During troubleshooting I managed to reverse it, but could not come up with a sure-way to handle them all (even with similar video and audio formats, one worked and the other didnt for no reason) so I used the method that worked with most of the ones I tried.

To be honest, I never intended to include bluray support in DVD Catalyst. At $10 compared to the $40+ of most similar tools, including bluray into the existing DVD app wouldn't be a good business strategy, especially in regards of the numerous emails I would receive of new protection methods and whatever else.

Pricing would depend on if I would be able to handle the protection myself, or, like Xilisoft's bluray ripper, if I would need to rely on AnyDVD HD / DVDfab Passkey. I even played with the idea of utilizing Slysoft's affiliate pay-out for AnyDVD HD to cover pricing of Bluray Catalyst ( if you would purchase AnyDVD HD using my affiliate link, you get blucat for free or something along those lines) but unfortunately, the information Slysoft provides about customers is not enough for me to sent out download links.

I am still working on a new conversion engine (which is what the beta version has, but its not up to my standards yet in terms of quality/speed) and when that is complete, I will have more time to focus on bluray.
[Xoom General] android_geoff:
the quality of standard DVD is more than enough for watching movies on the go.

I was just wondering because most of my new DVDs are on blu ray so ill just need to make sure I buy the DVD combo pack in the future
[Xoom General] Wolfeman0101:
If I use Handbrake, what settings should I use to convert it? One of the presets or custom? What container and what codec works best?

Honestly I wish it could natively play XviD AVIs and x264/H264 MKVs. When are developers going to realize that's what people want...
[Xoom General] keitht:
It is more complicated than what you realize.:)

And this thread is mostly geared towards DVD Cat 4. Click the link in my sig for FAQ and scroll to the Vid area. It has a basic handbrake preset option (downloadable). Also gives a shout out to dc4 which I did purchase.
[Xoom General] Wolfeman0101:
Ok sorry for the derailment. I just already rip or find my videos in other ways and they are either XviD AVIs or x264 MKVs and I'm used to Handbrake. I'll check out that preset.
[Xoom General] thehavock18:
I have an i7 quad 12gb ram and a nvidia gtx 570. Took 2 hours on xoom and about 45 min on fast.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
For me the quality of DVDs is good enough as well. It is nice to know what the xoom can actually handle in terms of maximum quality settings, but to actually use them for full movies is a bit of overkill for my own use.

2 hours seems a bit long for a DVD conversion. did you change any other settings, or maybe converted a 1080 MKV or something like that?

When the conversion is running, dvd catalyst displays a couple of links, one of them "conversions are slow" will take you to a website article I wrote that has some speed tips.
[Xoom General] lacesout:
Set Video kbps to 2200

Set Audio to 160 kbps and samplerate to 48

On audio I also moved DRC to 4.0

Codec is FFmpeg. Works great. I tried H.264 but encoding takes several hours. With FFmpeg it takes about 35 min. Quality is excellent.

The one thing about removing black bars is that you are now cropping the movie. You may cut off some on the sides which to me is annoying. I'd rather see the whole movie as filmed than formatted for the screen.
[Xoom General] calin75:
This is all good, but I was expecting the blockbuster app to be installed in the xoom. I don't feel like renting a movie, have to convert it, and then have to upload it to my device. Too much work. Is there another option to just rent movies and download them straight to your xoom? Kind of like media hub from Samsung?
[Xoom General] str3ssball:
Can I get on the beta program? If it helps I do own DVD Catalyst, and AnyDVD HD.
[Xoom General] Holsum:
First off, dvdcatalyst I just want to thank you for all your awesome help.....

I have a core i7 950 and it takes me about 20-30 mins per movie. That isnt with xoom (fast) either. I ended up doing 6 movies last night and they all look amazing. I will be recommending this to all my friends.

~holsum
[Xoom General] oc3rulz:
I use AVS Video Converter have for years, and I love it! I can change any setting, make DVD's, .mp4, .m4v, BluRay, you name it. Only takes 20-30min to create a new file and works great on the Xoom.

My brother used your DVD Catalyst and said great things, is there a free trial somewhere to test out the software?
[Xoom General] Wolfeman0101:
I used the instructions in the Video section www .gigadroid .com /androidtalk /viewtopic.php?f=14&t=21 for Handbrake and watched TopGear in 720p last night on my XOOM. It worked flawlessly.

This is just a stopgap for me. I really want native x264 MKV playback so I don't have to reencode everything.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Hm, I have to dig through the profile settings regarding notifications. Sorry for the late responses.

In DVD Cat 4, enable "Power User" then go into Global Settings > Version information, and click on the Beta button at the bottom. Keep in mind that there is no XOOM profile in the beta, so you will have to manually select your settings in Modify (just pick something like a Android > Droid profile, and in Modify change the screen resolution and video/audio quality to your liking. Please understand that it is a beta version, and will have some issues. To revert back, just tap on the cat-eyes in the program to "update" to 4.0.2.5.

You are welcome, I'm glad to do it. I just wish I had something better than a core2duo myself so I would get those speeds, but then again, if I did, I don't think I would spend much time on trying to speed things up :)

Since I'm still new on XDA (well, I have been visiting for a long time) I don't want to link to my site, but there is a Trial version available that converts 25% of each item you convert on the tools4movies website. I used to have a 7-day unrestricted trial, but thanks to numerous virus scanners flagging the trial software as being bad, I was forced to do it this way. I always hated the 5 minutes that similar commercial apps use, sp I figured 25% would be give a fair indication of quality and speed.
[Xoom General] admiral70:
DVD Catalyst Settings

For those that have ripped some movies using DVD Catalyst for the Xoom what settings are you finding the best?

Screensize:

Video Quality (kbps):

Video Mode:

Sound Quality (kbps):

Audio Mode:

if there are other settings let me know those and how you changed them. Thank you for any and all responses really appreciate it.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
On my website, I have a short article about a 1080 trailer I converted for the Xoom, but beyond that, I honestly haven't done much experimenting yet.

Since it basically replaced my NOOKcolor, I loaded up some of the files I created for that yesterday, and they look pretty good. 854x480, 800Kbps video, 128kbps Stereo audio (standard Android > NOOKcolor profile).

Pirates of the Carib 1: 943MB, Pirates 2: 990MB, Pirates 3: 1GB, Transformers 1: 949, Transformers 2: 996MB etc.

I am currently writing a xoom-specific how-to guide, and will play with a bunch of different settings as well, but for the files I had laying around, it does an amazing job.

(I just looked at your Sig, and noticed the Droid X. The NOOK settings are pretty much the same as the ones you would use for the X, so if you used dvdcat for the X, those files will play on the Xoom as well)
[Xoom General] admiral70:
Thank you for the reply. I purchased your great product last night and used stock Xoom settings on The Matrix and it worked just fine. Just was wondering what others are using. I am glad to hear I can convert for the Droid X and use them on Xoom that makes my day.

Does seem to take a longtime to convert (5+ hrs) but I think I did something wrong and will be watching that as I go along.

Keep up the great work I like DVDCat.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thank you :)

I would like to hear other settings as well, but I figured I'd share the info that the movies I already had laying around worked fine as well. The nook/X optimized files have a resolution very close to actual DVD resolution, so unless you are converting HD files (MKV rips and such) there isn't much need to go much higher in terms of quality.

5 hours does seem a bit long though. Did you check the "conversions are slow" link that is displayed during conversions? It should help you with speeding things up a bit.
[Xoom General] bwcorvus:
I'm converting on an alienware laptop built in may of last year and it only took me an hour and 15 minutes to convert a 9gig avatar DVD(2:40 runtime) to mp4. I used the default xoom setting but changed to 2000 bitrate.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
What is the processor you have in your laptop, bwcorvus?

On a dual-core, the speed sounds about right, but if its a quad-core, it should be able to go a bit faster, especially an Alienware.
[Xoom General] bwcorvus:
Quadcore i7 1.6...a normal movie takes around 45 minutes. Got to think avatar is basically two movies.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thanks for the update :)

45mins on a laptop is pretty good. Mine takes a bit longer. I am due for an upgrade, but waiting for the Sandy Bridge fixes to be out and the price of the 2820qm to go down a bit.

I kinda forgot that Avatar is 3+ hours. I have the big box version here (extended collectors) and its been out of the box once. Still haven't gotten to it yet.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
I just finished the how-to guide and posted it on my website. If you need some help with dvdcat for the Xoom, have a look there. At the bottom I also included some tips, 2 of them regarding unique and very useful features.
[Xoom General] admiral70:
I am averaging 1 hour per DVD. Something went crazy on my first DVD with the 5 hours but since down to 1 hour.

Now time to play with settings to see if I can reduce that time and file size. So far the best investment for my Xoom.
[Xoom General] thehavock18:
I stand corrected on conversion times. I had a game in the background minimized. After closing I can convert an mkv file 2 hours in 15 min.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
:)

I guess running a game in the background while you are running the conversion can affect the speed a tad.

15min for a 2hour MKV, thats about 8x realtime. Very nice.
[Xoom General] android_geoff:
dvd cat, not sure if you can answer this but is there any way to change the thumbnails on each image?

I'd like to have the DVD cover for each thumbnail right now it just picks a random scene for the pic
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Its possible to change the conver-image, but unfortunately, the Xoom will not use it. The Android Gallery picks a random frame from between the first 5 and 15 seconds of the video.

In DVD Cat is a setting that lets you overlay the video name (the filename you give it) on top of the video for this time, so if enabled, you will actually see the title of the movie when you see the thumbnails in Gallery, but adding the image as Cover Art in the MP4 file will not be used.

For info on this, visit the latest news-section on my site and look at the bottom of the dvd to xoom guide. (the last screenshot there)

If you use your files with other devices (iPod/iPad etc), or media management software (iTunes/WMP), you can use a program called MetaX (free) to change all the MP4 tags.

Before I made Android my main video player platform, I used that to organize my movies and tv shows
[Xoom General] android_geoff:
ok thanks ill take a look at your news section and try out that app too

Thanks for the quick replies
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
You are welcome,

I was hoping that they would include some filename display options in Gallery in Honeycomb, but unfortunately, thats still unchanged. Not too big of a deal, but now I just have to use a file-explorer app in order to find the episode I want to watch.

The filename display option in DVD Cat I described in the article works, and its the only way to have Gallery display the name, but its not perfect.
[Xoom General] android_geoff:
pm'd dvd cat
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
pm answered :)
[Xoom General] J7NY:
Is there anything like this for Mac's? For the life of me I can't figure out how to convert some of my old DVD's into a viewable format for my Xoom. I also would like to be able to convert some of my purchased iTunes movies over to viewable format too if possible.

The only thing I have been able to do is convert my .Tivo files over. Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to PM if you prefer. Thanks!

I'd rather not have to return this thing, because otherwise I love it. And I assume the Netflix Hulu functionality will come soon enough.
[Xoom General] m3lover1:
I know this isn't really the thread for it, but when you guys use rockplayer, do you watch with software accelerated or hardware? What's the difference?
[Xoom General] SQurel23:
Was wondering about this too...I've tried 3 different files and they all seem to work better with this option
[Xoom General] Lars1967:
Which option?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Software-mode uses the tegra2's processor for decoding the video and audio, Harware-accelerated uses the dedicated video/audio decoding portion of the processor (same as what Gallery uses).

I don't think Tegra (well, the ffmpeg kernel that RockPlayer uses) is optimized for the Tegra2 or even dual-core, or the hardware mode, but on other devices (Droid X) using hardware enables you to use higher quality settings, and uses less batterypower. But, you still have to make sure the video is in a proper format.
[Xoom General] slowrey:
Anyone have any good handbrake settings? The one's that I ripped for my computer/ps3 work great but studder a bit on the Xoom.
[Xoom General] Mudvayne622:
Could you post all the settings you used to achieve what you think are the perfect settings?
[Xoom General] acleansc4:
Slightly Off Topic: This is NOT related to DVD Catalyst but more of a multimedia playback audio issue. DVD Catalyst 4 works great and I have playback working beautifully.

Here's whats happening on my Xoom.

1) Audio - even if the volume is 1 click from silent, it plays full blast

2) Headphone - even with headphone jack plugged in, it plays full blast from speaker

I've adjusted audio w/ the rockers as well as in the system settings and they never play correctly. It's either FULL blast or too quiet to hear anything until it's raised to the max.

Anyone else have this problem?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
I have experienced the loudness of the Xoom, which might be related to a feature in DVD Catalyst. By default it uses a setting I call "Audio Maximizer", which boosts the volume on all your conversions a bit. It works similar as audio normalize for music, but it increases the volume a bit. Its not easy to explain in a forum post, but I have an article on my website that explains it with screenshots. Usually DVDs are less loud than video files, so when you convert different media, you end up with different volume levels. With audio maximizer, everything will have the same volume.

It is set to a safe value to eliminate chances of distortion, but it might be that for the Xoom it is too loud. For any other device, I have never ran into this though.

You can change the setting in Global Settings > Advanced. its defaulted to 50.

I am still fiddling with the actual screen resolution on the Xoom itself. The bottom menubar is permanent, so if you have a full 1280x800 (xoom res) it will be downscaled a little, leaving you with black borders on the sides. Yesterday I came up with 754 as the height for the video portion that remains on-screen, so I created a few sample videos on my site with that resolution (they stream if you visit the article on your xoom, but use wifi). The 1280x754 resolution isn't selectable in DVDCat yet, but once I have a few more things figured out about the xoom, including HDMI playback and such, I'll release a small update for it. It shouldn't be more than a few days.

For the samples, I downloaded 1080p versions of movie trailers.

In DVD Catalyst 4, I selected the Xoom profile, and changed the resolution to 1280x754 (in the current version I would suggest to use 1280x800 (small borders on the sides) or 1280x720 (small borders on top and bottom))

I upped the video quality to 2000, and in Global Settings > Borders, I selected "remove black bars from device"

The video is h264 audio aac stereo, ipod/iphone compatible settings.
[Xoom General] JC3:
Help for noobs

I made a step by step video for the technically challenged people out there. I also included the preset Motorola Xoom 720p template for HandBreak so you don't have to enter the settings manually. youtube.com/watch?v=cVBpeQNWbEQ Hope this helps.

BTW the quality using the settings in my video is great!
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thanks for the guide JC3,

I know my tests might appear to be skewed because I am the developer of my own software, but I figured I'd give your settings a testrun, and I would suggest to do some tweaks to your profile.

Here is what I did:

I first tried a 1080 file, but noticed that you used "same as source" for the resolution, and since your settings suggest 720p, a 1080-sized trailer wouldn't be a fair representation, so I downloaded the 720p version of the new pussinboots trailer from the Apple website. I installed the latest Handbrake, and imported your profile, and started a conversion. I didn't change anything else.

The resulting file ended up about 31MB in size. (original was 44MB)

I then converted the same file using similar settings in DVD Catalyst 4. I selected the Xoom profile, changed the video to 3500 (same as yours) but I changed the audio to 160 (yours has 128). I changed the screensize to 1280x800, and disabled the automatic cropping feature), which basically means that it uses the original resolution of the video (same as your profile)

I noticed you used some of the high-quality settings for h264, so I selected h264_ipod_hq as the conversion format, which basically turns off some of the speed optimisations.

The created file ended up about 24MB in size (even with a higher audio quality setting)

On my PC, the visual quality of both files was pretty much the same, and playback was smooth. However, when I played the files on the Xoom, the file created using your settings stuttered a little bit, like it was skipping a frame here and there.

I am currently uploading the created files, the original trailer file I used, as well as the settings used to my website. I can't link to it on the forum, but if you are interested, I can provide you the link by PM so you can see for yourself.

I know, this information coming from me might seem 1-sided, however, I have no problem whatsoever with Handbrake. Its just that your settings need a bit of tweaking.
[Xoom General] JC3:
Thanks for the help @dvdcatalyst! I would be glad to put the settings you suggested in my video description. PM me the link and I will change them. Also if you have the best 1080p settings you would like to share that would also be great. I have been experimenting with 1080p settings but I just couldn't get the results I was looking for.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
I don't have Handbrake settings to suggest unfortunately. I don't use it myself, but I wanted to give your settings a shot to see how it would work, and if I could learn something from them. In DVD Catalyst, I use Mencoder (same as Slysoft's Clone DVD Mobile, but I was there first :))

I would consider playing with some of the following settings:

* b-frames : 0 Many portable devices have some issues with it, and I don't use them in my own settings. In the past I have had issues with stuttering when b-frames are enabled.

* ref-frames : 1 (also affects stuttering a bit)

the rest, should be fine. maybe use trellis.

Like I said above, I don't use Handbrake, so I have no idea what these settings will do with it, however, I do know that these settings have caused some complications for me in the past with DVD Catalyst.
[Xoom General] Arun01:
I use total video converter & I can set the resolution to whatever I want.it works everytime & its not hit or miss either.plays h.264 flawlessly
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Hi Arun, thanks for your input,

Handbrake is free, dvdcat is $10, but for total video converter it looks a bit confusing. On their site I see a standard version for $30, and an HD version for $50 (or an upgrade from SD to HD for $40). It says that if you do HD with the standard version you get watermarks in the video. So are you using the HD version for your Xoom conversions?
[Xoom General] :
http://www.formatoz.com/

I recommend FormatFactory. Think it the easiest program out there. It is a solid and nice program. I just select the format i want and then what quality i want and then the file. It have also built-in profiles for different mobile devices.

I usually just choise to change the format and audio and leave the resolution untouched. For exampel i take a 720p .mkv movie whit DTS and size about 4.5GB and i only choices the make it to a mp4 file whit medium quality and stereo sound. And the output file will be a mp4 720p 2.8GB and plays really god.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
I briefly played with HDMI a few days ago, and while the mirror setup works really cool, I did notice that with video it has some strange behavior.

I tried a 720p and a 1080p trailer I created (pussinboots trailer, article with settings for dvdcat with links to the samples on my site in case you want to try).

The trailers were encoded using their original resolutions, and because they came from the Apple trailer site, they had the Apple logo in the right corner. On the TV, this was partically cut-off, while on the Xoom it was not.

Then I tried playing the trailers from my full-screen experiment, and when you play the 1280x800 or the 1280x754 sized trailers, you can see the Xoom shifting the video upwards a bit, reducing the video playback area even more. The 1280x754 trailer, which plays without HDMI connected in full-screen on the Xoom, because of the thing the Xoom adds/does, ends up playing with black borders on the Xoom if HDMI is connected. Of course with HDMI connected, you wouldn't be looking at the Xoom-screen, but this behavior is a bit unusual.

Playing the 1280x720 sized trailer also has the video lifted on the Xoom, and that one appears to shift a little to the side on the actual Xoom-screen for some reason.

I don't know what to make of it yet, but it appears that if you actually start playing a video on your Xoom with HDMI connected (that is if it is hardware accelerated video playback) the Xoom switches to a different HDMI output mode, likely similar to what the Droid X does.
[Xoom General] xlGmanlx:
DVD quality is fine but I only have a select few bluray discs
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
For the people who are already using my software, I released the xoom update today. To update to the latest version, just click on the cat-eyes in the program to download the latest version.

I included a xoom-readme that provides info about the changes as well as a FAQ.

If you install the update, make sure you switch profiles (select a different device, then switch back to the xoom profile) to make sure you use the new settings.